WATCH: First Clip of Mia Wasikowska as Outback Adventurer Robyn Davidson in ‘Tracks’

WATCH: First Clip of Mia Wasikowska as Outback Adventurer Robyn Davidson in 'Tracks'

One of the many exciting premieres awaiting fall festival goers is John Curran’s “Tracks,” starring Mia Wasikowska as Robyn Davidson, the real-life trail blazer who in 1977 at age 27 embarked on a 1700-mile journey across the Australian Outback with four camels and a dog. The film debuts at Venice and Toronto. Watch a first-look clip below.

Adam Driver (“Girls”) also stars as National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan, who meets up with Davidson on three occasions to document her journey. No sighting of Driver in this first clip, but we do see Wasikowska penning the letter that would eventually entice him to the desert.

The lovely cinematography on display is by Mandy Walker (“Australia,” “Red Riding Hood”).

Here’s the synopsis:

In 1977, a twenty-seven-year-old Australian woman named
Robyn Davidson set out from Alice Springs to walk across 2,700 kilometers of
harsh desert to the Indian Ocean. Accompanied only by her dog and four camels,
Davidson yearned for a solitary journey of self-discovery, and had no ambition
other than to reach the ocean beach. She ultimately wrote about her desert
adventure in 1980 in the travelogue Tracks, which became a cult favourite
around the world and has only now been beautifully adapted for the big screen
by director John Curran (The Painted Veil).

Robyn (Mia Wasikowska, in a bravura performance) spends two
hardscrabble years in the Alice Springs area learning how to train and care for
camels (feral herds of which number in the thousands in Western Australia) in
order to prepare for her journey. Finally ready to embark with her animals, she
realizes she is woefully underfunded and, despite her desires for
self-sufficiency, accepts a fee from National Geographic in exchange for a
written piece. The magazine adds a condition: she must allow photographer Rick
Smolan (Adam Driver, also at the Festival in Michael Dowse’s The F Word) to
photograph her at selected stops along the way.